It may soon be possible to determine whether a child has autism from a blood test.
At present, it is determined by clinical examination, meaning detection does not usually happen until the child is four years old.
However, scientists have been trialling a new test that uses an algorithm to predict if a child has autism spectrum disorder, based on metabolites in a blood sample.
The tests were carried out on 303 children in groups and reported 88% accuracy.
Juergen Hahn, lead author, said: “This is an approach that we would like to see move forward into clinical trials and ultimately into a commercially available test.
“The most meaningful result is the high degree of accuracy we are able to obtain using this approach on data collected years apart from the original dataset.”
The study has been published in the journal Bioengineering and Translational Medicine.
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